The Imaginary Invalid | Comic Devices and Comic Language
In the following essay, Barnwell examines Moliere’s use of comic devices, including ‘‘repetition, duplication, [and] duplicate mimicry,’’ to suggest automatism and rigidity in The Imaginary Invalid.
In analysing aspects of plot, structure and characterisation, I have touched upon a number of points connected with the kind of theatrically comic devices and language which feature in Le Malade imaginaire—inevitably, because they are integral to the play and not gratuitous or decorative. ‘Le style est l’homme même’, wrote Buffon, and certainly their style characterises the stage-figures in Molière’s plays. The language of the theatre is not, however, the language of everyday life, for three reasons: first, from a purely practical standpoint, the language of ordinary...
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